Welcome to this week’s installment of From Our Friends, our weekly roundup where we highlight some of our favorite posts from the past week and more from our friends and partners around the web. This week’s edition includes articles on mood and metabolism-boosting exercises, recipes for delicious flavored water for the summer, increasing empathy, the benefits of spirulina, and the value of the season that’s nearly sold out. Enjoy!

1. Boost your mood and metabolism with this fast-paced medicine-ball exercise from Experience Life.

2. This is the absolute epitome of summer! Check out MightyNest’s latest blog on refreshing flavored waters with great flavors like Blackberry Sage and Cucumber Mint Grapefruit.

3. Good news over at Blisstree: Looks like American teenagers are no longer smoking cigarettes like they used to.

4. By increasing activity in parts of the brain important to empathy, researchers are hopeful that we can improve our ability to recognize emotions in others. Read more at YogiTimes.

5. If you had to guess, what do you think is the world’s healthiest food? A vegetable, like kale? A fruit, maybe a berry? Perhaps something like an egg or a glass of milk? Would you be surprised by an algae? But that’s precisely what some experts say about the benefits of spirulina, the blue-green cyanobacteria. Read more about spirulina at The Organic Whey.

6. Our friends at EcoSalon have nearly sold out of their Summer Box. It includes a ton of great spa products valued at over $500. Best part? It’s only $129 plus free shipping, pretty much the deal of the season. Go pick one up before it’s too late!